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Injury risk comes from contact sports, SC court says

COLUMBIA — South Carolina’s Supreme Court has ruled people playing contact sports assume the risk they will be injured.

The high court upheld today a lower court’s ruling that a man who was injured in a 2004 pickup softball game during a Boy Scouts camping trip in Sumter should have known he could be hurt.

David Cole suffered a closed head wound and went into convulsions after a base runner collided with him at home plate. Cole spent two days in intensive care. The man who ran into Cole broke a rib when he landed on a bat.

Cole and his son sued the Boy Scouts, a church and Jeff Wagner for personal injury and emotional distress.

Wagner’s attorney said he was pleased. An attorney for Cole didn’t immediately comment.